The manufacture of a textile preform with continuous fibres normally takes place from a resin powdered fibrous array, in the form of initially flat woven sheet(s), an assembly that is stamped between a punch and a matrix in order to model it to the desired geometry. To do so, the punch is generally activated by a translation movement intended to bring it into contact with the fibrous array, then to deform this assembly until it is pressed tightly against the matrix, marking the end of the stamping.
Then, the tooling clasping the fibrous array is placed in an oven in order to assure the melting and the hardening of the resin powder, which then links the fibres together. Cooling is then carried out, then the textile preform obtained is extracted from the tooling, in order to undergo subsequent operations making it possible to obtain the final part made of composite material. An alternative embodiment consists in placing heating elements directly in the tooling, to replace the step of heating in the oven.
Nevertheless, whatever the solution retained, this type of process remains to be optimised in terms of manufacturing time, this being strongly impacted by the length of the temperature raising and lowering phases.